There are over 450 cities in Canada with 10,000+ people, and nobody in foodservice media is covering them.

Until now.

Welcome to The Other 95%, Ashton Media Network's NO|BS deep dive into the foodservice and hospitality opportunities in Canada's smaller cities. While other media companies keep their cameras pointed at Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, we're going where the real stories are.

As I see other foodservice media companies in Canada keeping their focus on the big cities to celebrate the industry, which I agree, we need, I also want to make sure we don't forget the others that aren't on their radar. Our industry sometimes forgets to honour the amazing foodservice and hospitality scenes in these cities, especially for the independents.

We're starting in a city that's building something special.

Sitting on the northern shore of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake on the planet, Thunder Bay is the biggest city in Northwestern Ontario and the undisputed hub of everything north of Sault Ste. Marie. With a city population pushing 118,000 and a metro area that recently crossed 133,000, this isn't a small town. It's a city with a big appetite and an even bigger heart for hospitality.

Thunder Bay is home to Lakehead University (nearly 9,000 students, including 1,900 international students from over 80 nations), Confederation College, a regional hospital, a casino, and one of the busiest airports in Ontario outside the GTA. It's the regional service centre for a catchment area of over 250,000 people spread across Northwestern Ontario. That means people from a massive geographic area drive to Thunder Bay for everything, including dining out.

The tourism story is equally exciting. The city's Tourism Manager recently stated that the past year has been one of their strongest tourism seasons in years, fueled by a massive lift in domestic Canadian travelers choosing to explore their own country, plus growing European visitor numbers. The Thunder Bay International Airport is consistently one of the top five busiest in Ontario, with daily direct flights to Toronto, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Calgary. Cruise ships have even started docking at the Port in summer. Hotel occupancy rates in July and August were among the highest in the province.

All of these visitors need to eat.

Thunder Bay has approximately 320+ restaurants listed on TripAdvisor alone, spanning fine dining, farm-to-table bistros, beloved diners, ethnic eateries, fast-casual spots, and food trucks. Add in catering companies, hotel food and beverage operations, institutional foodservice, bars, pubs, breweries, and coffee shops, and you're looking at a foodservice ecosystem that punches well above its weight class.

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Thunder Bay has the largest Finnish population outside of Finland, and this isn't just a fun fact. It's a defining feature of the city's food identity. Finnish pancakes are an institution here, served at multiple restaurants across the city. This cultural anchor gives Thunder Bay a food identity that no other Canadian city can replicate. That's a powerful differentiator for marketing, tourism, and community pride.

Thunder Bay is home to the "Persian," a cinnamon bun topped with bright pink berry icing that's as deeply embedded in local culture as poutine is in Quebec. It's become a legitimate tourist draw. These are exactly the kinds of hyper-local food stories that national media ignores but that drive real foot traffic and community identity. Every small city in Canada has these stories. They just need someone to tell them.

Newcomers are reshaping Thunder Bay's food landscape in exciting ways. Syrian, Portuguese, Middle Eastern, and other immigrant entrepreneurs are opening restaurants and cafés, choosing Thunder Bay over Toronto and Winnipeg specifically because of lower costs, less competition, and high consumer demand for variety. With approximately 9,000 immigrants in the city representing cultures from across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, this pipeline of culinary diversity is only accelerating. Each new restaurant makes the city's foodservice scene richer and more compelling.

Thunder Bay's food movement has been building for over 25 years, starting with pioneering cheese producers and award-winning restaurants in the late 1990s. Since then, a wave of chef-driven independents has transformed the city. Menus change weekly based on what's available from local farms. Wine lists have won national awards. A locally made hot sauce earned international fame after being featured on YouTube's Hot Ones and recognized by CNN. The entire food culture revolves around knowing your farmer, your brewer, and your cheesemaker.

With five craft breweries and counting, plus a growing cocktail bar culture, Thunder Bay's beverage scene is driving tourism and foot traffic on its own. Brewery tours are now a legitimate draw for visitors. The cross-promotion opportunities between restaurants and breweries are enormous, and most of them are still untapped.

This is the section that matters most to operators, suppliers, and anyone looking at Thunder Bay as a market.

Nationally, online restaurant orders jumped 155% between 2022 and 2024, and 56% of Canadians now prefer ordering delivery through third-party apps. Operators who invest in their own digital ordering, loyalty apps, and direct delivery infrastructure will capture revenue that's currently being left on the table. Suppliers offering digital ordering solutions have a wide-open market here.

Thunder Bay had 2,364 vacant positions across all sectors as of mid-2025, up 8.2% year over year. Nationally, the foodservice sector is grappling with nearly 100,000 job vacancies, with restaurants operating at roughly 80% of normal capacity. The operators who get ahead of this with smart scheduling, technology, and creative retention strategies will have a serious competitive advantage. For suppliers selling labour-saving equipment, scheduling software, or kitchen automation, Thunder Bay is a market in urgent need.

Thunder Bay recently ran some of Ontario's highest hotel occupancy rates in peak summer. Cruise ships are docking at the port. National sporting championships are drawing thousands. Business travel, conferences, and sports events round out a diversified tourism economy. Help independents build tourism-focused strategies: event tie-in menus, grab-and-go options for hikers, waterfront dining promotions, and late-night options for sports event crowds.

Nearly 9,000 students attend the local university, including 1,900 international students representing 80+ countries. Add in the college and you have a significant young, diverse, food-curious population in a city where late-night dining options are limited. Student-focused promotions, international cuisine, affordable meal deals, and social-media-driven marketing are all low-hanging fruit.

Nationally, 22% of Canadians increased their plant-based consumption between 2022 and 2024, and 61% of diners are more likely to choose a quick-service restaurant offering healthier options. Thunder Bay has a few players in this space, but the market is far from saturated.

If there's one area where Thunder Bay's foodservice operators are leaving the most money on the table, it's social media. In a city of 118,000+ people, the competition for attention on local feeds is a fraction of what it is in Toronto or Vancouver. That means every dollar and every hour spent on content goes further here.

Most restaurants in Thunder Bay rely primarily on Instagram and Facebook, with Google Reviews serving as the main discovery tool. There's a growing but small local food creator and influencer scene. TikTok adoption among local restaurants is still in its infancy. This is not a criticism. It's an opportunity. In a market this size, even basic consistent content will set you apart.

The proof that social media works for Thunder Bay food businesses is already there. A locally made hot sauce brand became internationally famous through smart content and eventually got featured on YouTube's Hot Ones series and recognized by CNN. If a condiment company can build a global brand from Thunder Bay, imagine what a restaurant can do with consistent, authentic storytelling.

📱 SOCIAL MEDIA ACTION PLAN:

Here's a stat that should stop every operator in Thunder Bay in their tracks: 93% of diners check Google before choosing a restaurant. When they do, your Google Business Profile is what they see first. It's not your website. It's not your Instagram. It's your Google listing. And restaurants that optimize their Google Business Profile get 2.3x more reviews and at least 15% more customer interactions (calls, bookings, direction requests) within six months.

In a city like Thunder Bay, where many restaurants still have incomplete or outdated Google profiles, the opportunity to dominate local search with basic optimization is enormous. This is free. This costs nothing but time. And it works.

✅ Claim and verify your listing. If you haven't done this, stop reading and do it now. Unverified listings don't appear in search results.

✅ Complete every single field. Name, address, phone number, hours (including holiday hours), website, menu link, online ordering link, reservation link. Businesses with complete profiles are 70% more likely to attract visits.

✅ Upload high-quality photos monthly. Restaurants with appealing photos receive 42% more requests for directions and 35% more website clicks. Shoot your food, your interior, your patio, your staff.

✅ Keep your hours accurate. Nothing kills trust faster than a customer driving across town to find you closed when Google says you're open.

✅ Use Google Posts weekly. Treat them like Instagram posts for Google. Promote specials, events, seasonal menus, and new dishes. Each post is a chance to target a keyword.

✅ Add attributes. Wi-Fi, patio dining, wheelchair accessible, kid-friendly, takeout, delivery, dine-in. Every attribute helps Google match you with the right searches.

✅ Respond to EVERY review. Positive or negative. This signals to Google that you're active, and it builds trust with potential customers reading reviews.

✅ Use keywords naturally in your responses. When you reply to a review, mention your cuisine type and location naturally: "Thanks for visiting our waterfront restaurant in Thunder Bay, glad you loved the Finnish pancakes!"

Reviews are the lifeblood of local search. Google prioritizes restaurants with a high volume of recent reviews. Aim for at least 10 new reviews per month to keep your signals fresh. Here's how:

When someone types "restaurants near me" or "best brunch Thunder Bay" into Google, only three results appear in the coveted Local Pack (the map results at the top of the page). Those three spots get the vast majority of clicks. Local SEO is how you get into that pack.

Google ranks local businesses based on three factors: Relevance (how well your profile matches the search), Distance (how close you are to the searcher), and Prominence (how well-known you are online based on reviews, links, articles, and directory listings). Here's how Thunder Bay operators can win on all three.

NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone Number. Your NAP must be identical across every platform: Google Business Profile, your website, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook, the Thunder Bay Chamber directory, tourism listings, and every other place your business appears online. Google uses consistency to verify trust. Even small discrepancies (like "St." vs. "Street" or a different phone format) can hurt your ranking.

90% of restaurant searches happen on mobile. If your website is slow, hard to navigate, or not mobile-friendly, Google takes that as a bad signal and ranks you lower. Your website should load in under 3 seconds, have your menu accessible without downloading a PDF, include an online ordering or reservation button, and embed a Google Map on your contact page.

Think like your customers search. Here are the types of keyword phrases Thunder Bay operators should weave into their website content, Google Business descriptions, and blog posts:

Get listed on every credible directory you can. Beyond Google, the platforms that matter most for Thunder Bay restaurants include: TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook, the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce directory, Visit Thunder Bay / Tourism Thunder Bay, Northern Ontario Travel, Destination Ontario, and any local food blogs or media outlets. Each consistent listing is a "citation" that strengthens your prominence signal with Google.

This is the section most foodservice media won't talk about yet because they don't understand it. But at Ashton Media Network, we're not here to tell you what happened last year. We're here to tell you what's happening next.

GEO stands for Generative Engine Optimization. It's the practice of making sure your restaurant shows up when someone asks an AI tool like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, or Apple Intelligence a question like "Where should I eat in Thunder Bay?" or "What's the best restaurant near Sleeping Giant Provincial Park?"

This is not a future trend. It's happening now. ChatGPT reached 800 million weekly active users as of late 2025, doubling in just eight months. AI-referred website sessions jumped 527% in the first half of 2025 alone. When someone asks an AI where to eat, the AI pulls from Google Reviews, structured website data, TripAdvisor, articles, and directory listings to generate its answer. If your restaurant isn't well-represented across these sources, you're invisible to a rapidly growing audience.

Here's the exciting part for smaller cities: AI tools don't have a big-city bias. They answer based on available data. If your restaurant has a strong, up-to-date, active Google Business Profile with a high volume of recent reviews, consistent directory listings, and a website with structured content, you have just as much chance of being recommended by ChatGPT as a restaurant in Toronto. The playing field is more level than it has ever been.

For Thunder Bay operators, this means the SEO and Google Business work you do today isn't just about Google Search. It's also feeding the AI engines that an increasingly large portion of your future customers will use to discover you.

🤖 GET YOUR RESTAURANT READY FOR AI:

The restaurants in Thunder Bay that take these steps today will be the ones that show up when the next generation of customers asks AI where to eat. The investment is minimal. Most of it is the same work you'd do for good Google and SEO practices. But the payoff is enormous, because you're building visibility across an entirely new discovery channel while your competitors don't even know it exists yet.

Here are concrete, actionable strategies that independent operators in Thunder Bay can start implementing now:

If you're an operator in Thunder Bay and you only have 30 days to make an impact, here's where to start:

Week 1: Claim and fully complete your Google Business Profile. Upload 10+ fresh photos. Respond to your last 20 reviews.

Week 2: Audit your NAP across all directories. Fix inconsistencies. Get listed on any platforms you're missing (TripAdvisor, Yelp, Chamber directory, Tourism Thunder Bay).

Week 3: Start posting to Instagram and Google Posts 3x per week. Set up QR code review cards for tables and receipts. Train staff on the review ask.

Week 4: Add FAQ content and schema markup to your website. Reach out to one local creator for a collaboration. Plan your next 90 days of seasonal content.

That's it. Four weeks. Zero ad spend. Maximum impact.

Thunder Bay is not a "small market." It's a city of 118,000+ people with a captive regional population of 250,000+, a growing tourism sector, a university driving cultural diversity, a farm-to-table food culture 25 years in the making, and independent operators who are among the most passionate and creative in the country.

The opportunities here are real: a digitally underserved market, surging tourism, untapped student demographics, and a local food movement primed for the next level. For suppliers, distributors, tech companies, and marketing agencies looking at the Canadian foodservice market, stop overlooking Thunder Bay.

And if you're an operator in Thunder Bay reading this, we see you. Ashton Media Network is here to cover the cities that the rest of the industry forgets. You deserve the same spotlight as the big cities, and we're going to make sure you get it.

This is The Other 95%. This is Ashton Media Network. This is Canada's Restaurant Guy.

Next week, we spotlight another city nobody's talking about. Stay tuned.

The Other 95% is produced by Ashton Media Network, Canada's only B2B media outlet for the hospitality industry.

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